Manmohan Singh to end 33 yrs stint in RS on Apr 3; Sonia to begin first

Former prime minister and Congress leader Manmohan Singh will end his 33-year-long parliamentary innings in the Rajya Sabha in early April, just as former party chief Sonia Gandhi enters the Upper House of Parliament for the first time.

Singh, who is known for ushering in several bold reforms in the economy, became a member of the House for the first time in October 1991. He was finance minister in the Narasimha Rao government from 1991 to 1996 and the prime minister from 2004 to 2014.

Sonia Gandhi will enter the upper house for the first time from Rajasthan, filling the seat that will fall vacant after 91-year-old Singh completes his tenure on April 3.

The Congress leader filed filed her nomination papers in Jaipur on Wednesday.

She will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter the Rajya Sabha after former prime minister and her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who had a two-and-a-half-year tenure (from August 1964 to February 1967) as a member of the House.

Sonia Gandhi has always been a member of the Lok Sabha, beginning 1999. In that year, she had contested from Uttar Pradesh's Amethi, her first general election after taking over as the president of the Congress a year before.

In 2004, she won the general elections from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh and has been representing it in the Lower House of Parliament since then. The 73-year-old Congress leader has never lost a Lok Sabha election.

During the last Lok Sabha polls, she had said that the 2019 polls would be her last election. She will be completing five-terms in the lower house.

Singh, who first became a Rajya Sabha member in 1991 after becoming the finance minister in the Rao government, had unsuccessfully contested the 1999 Lok Sabha elections from South Delhi. He was defeated by BJP's Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

His stint in the upper house was continuous, except for a two-month gap in 2019 when he was given a Rajya Sabha berth from Rajasthan.

Singh was a Rajya Sabha member from Assam for five continuous terms, from October 1, 1991 to June 14, 2019, and thereafter, was again elected to the House from Rajasthan after the short gap. He is a member from the state since August 20, 2019. His term will end on April 3, 2024.

Singh was the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from March 21, 1998 to May 21, 2004.

He has often been accused by the BJP for running a government that was marred by corruption. The party had also termed "MaunMohan Singh", alleging he did not speak out against corrupt leaders in his cabinet.

Singh had, however, hoped that "history would be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the opposition parties in Parliament".

Of late, he has has not been keeping good health and has often been seen attending the Rajya Sabha proceedings, especially during crucial voting, on a wheelchair.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently lauded his role as a member of the upper house and said his contributions would never be forgotten. Modi also said that Singh sometimes came to vote while being on a wheelchair, and that he did to strengthen democracy.